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pkenney

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Timestamp	Since previous	Game		pkenney's comment
May 5 03:06:58		Strange Zoo	♥ 2	I escaped the Zoo with 4100 pts without reading the instructions, hints, or spoiler. Very cool to unwind the mystery. I was glad that hints were not on the LD page, and tucked away out of sight for those who wanted them. Simply displaying "0" at the top-center was a smart move, it told me, "this game has a way to score and you should explore to find it." Looking at the spoiler retroactively, the one thing I didn't figure out was the flashing/dying ones were how you got bling. I just kind of randomly happened to get some, fortunately. The little heart icon even on non-dying ones was key, as it let me know "yup that is good, do more of that." The art was nice and made the critters have real character. I caught flashes of real animals but then they'd have a strange twist, worked really well. Sound is a trippy otherworldly background that improves the experience a lot. Nice job!
May 6 03:40:19	24h 33m	Tight Five: Still Alive	♥ 1	Very cool concept. I got into character and got myself into some trouble trying to force the jokes to actually make sense, when I should have just focused on scoring to stay alive. That's on me! I did enjoy landing a few nice off color 1-2 punches, but spending points on coherence is not a luxury I could often afford. I was moderately confused at first. I figured out the state transitions, the color coding, and then the action points. I didn't understand why I was losing action points between rounds or what that heckler was for, so the tutorial video was super helpful. After watching that I started playing more strategically and did better. Then after a handful of plays to learn the ropes, I knocked em dead. I really liked the vibe, and since you put in the effort for the tutorial vis, I thought I'd make some notes on some things that still confused me after playing: - Why can't I put this card into my hand face down? It's the first card of the game. I was able to put the next three in face-down but this one had to be flipped before I would go in my hand. TightFice-CantMoveCard.png - Playing face-down cards is weird. It says "?" but I can see the total so it's not really a mystery, except in the moment of the joke when I may go over 21. I guess I should always play every first joke blind because I can't go over, and I can spend the action points to draw more cards rather than flip for the first joke. - Small but recurring UI nit: I wish I could right click a face-down card in my hand to spend a point and flip it, rather than having to left-click-right-click-left-click it. (That said, programming this game must have been a nightmare of UI state management and it's really overall very low-friction once you get going.) - I don't fully understand why I can choose how many jokes to tell on a turn. If I do zero, I was not clear about the consequences and whether I am burning through chances, but I often had to do it if I had, say, an 18 and couldn't play without failing. If I do more than one, I burn cards and limit flexibility, so I only did that when I had the 21 already in hand. - I was also unclear about the scoring. I got a 20. Then I resolved a heckler and my score was zero. Was that good or bad? I didn't know if I had gotten "nearly perfect" in round 1 and then moved on to round 2 with a feather in my cap, or whether I had failed for not getting exactly 21 and been sent back to the start to try again. Eventually I did get a 21 and saw that it shooed the heckler away and set me back to zero without having to feed him a card. This made me think the reset to zero was NOT bad, and my 20/21 was a good score. Anyway I liked this and spent some time with it, hope the nit-list didn't feel negative. Wouldn't spend the time writing it if this was not a very cool game. The robot pose-art was on point, and the sounds were well-chosen to create a cool ambiance. But what I appreciated most was definitely the conceptual theme of the robo-standup. Nice entry!
May 10 02:34:13	94h 53m	Ludum Dare 53	♥ 0	Cool entry with a lot going on! Looks nice for sure, so good job putting the assets together even if you didn't draw them. I like this one but I also felt like it had some rough edges. The potential here was higher than what it accomplished. If it's okay I want to drop a list of issues I encountered... I hope this is helpful feedback and not hurtful. If I thought it was just a bad entry I would not put in the effort, believe me. 1. Colliders are too small. This makes the graphics "lie" to me. I can walk over a heart but not pick it up. I can phase through a tree. Most problematic of all, I can swing my sword and watch is slash through a skellie but actually it secretly didn't connect. I think bigger colliders for good things (get heart, hit enemy) would improve the game feel. Typically, colliders feel best imo when they err on the side of cheating very slightly in favor of the player. 2. Combat feedback is non-existent. I cannot tell if I hit the enemy because there is no flash, no animation, no sound, no knockback. I let a big mob build up and then I had this epic battle for like a full minute thinking "wow these guys take a lot of hits" before I realized "Oh wow the last fifty swings of my sword I didn't actually hit any of these guys!" I think combat could feel a LOT more satisfying with bigger colliders and a bit of feedback (and knockback). 3. Random explosions from something I can't see just confused me. I didn't know what was happening until I alt-tabbed back and read the hints. The damage they did was so small that it hardly mattered, yet they had the biggest graphics and sound feedback. I don't feel they fit thematically with the game (skeletons using mines?) and the game would have been better without them. 4. The damage dealt by skellies was pretty low, and while I'm glad a mistake wasn't instant game over, combat was not as exciting as it could be because it didn't matter if I took hits. This led to me just walking up and spam attacking the skellies rather than playing a game of positional combat vs them. 5. Was there actually a pumkin? The game said it was my mission. I searched and searched but never found one. Was that empty area of dirt on the far right with the tree stump the grave? I got there, and I think it started a battle, but I beat back some skellies and hit that lady who freezes time and blanks the screen a few times, but nothing happened. I ended up confused about what to do. Anyway that list probably sounds rough, but I don't mean to sound like it's a bad entry. I enjoyed spending some time going around and exploring, collecting hearts, and beating up on some skellies. You included a variety of features and a nicely-bounded scope that felt pretty complete, so well done on the entry!
May 10 02:58:30	24m 17s	Slip & Slice	♥ 0	I am IN for car drifting. And the peaks of this game's feel are awesome. You swerve around a corner and drop off multiple pizzas in one fluid non-stop screeching arc. It's incredible. And such a shame that I got to experience it so infrequently. I guess you probably thought I would be a lot better at this game than I was, because I sucked. For every transcendent multi-pizza arc, I had twenty jerky insta-fullstops and five times getting stuck in a corner and another five times fking up which direction to turn when I was reversing while being upside down. There were straight-up 30-second-long slices of my gameplay that were embarrassing mistake after mistake that made me wince. I did enjoy having to work for the enjoyment, and it made it even more satisfying when it happened. But I felt like the balance was slightly off. I think the feel needed polish. I think the colliders were too sticky, and should have been a bit more forgiving by being slippery. I should not be full-insta-stopped by brushing my tail against a house, I should bounce off with a jolt but keep 65% of my speed. I think forward and reverse should not be perfect mirrors that invite you to get stuck in an infinite trap, reserve should turn harder. I think reverse should not be so slow and could also be fun instead of un-fun. I think I guess I just wanted to be better so that I could seize more moments of the glorious highs that this game can offer, instead of mostly wallowing in the foulest moments most of the time. Wonderful game. Just a few tweaks short of absolutely amazing. Great job.
May 10 03:15:42	17m 12s	Loading Zone	♥ 1	Wow this is so cool! It's a simple core idea that leads to some interesting juggling, both physical and mental. There is a cool multi-tasking between moving the boxes into the truck from my stacks, while also keeping the forklift active. Then I have to think about what to do to move things around during my downtime to set up cleanly to open myself up to opportunities. Few times I felt like I was heading for losing, and suddenly I'd get the truck I needed to clear a full stack or more. Very cool entry, well done.
May 11 01:31:34	22h 15m	Rush Deliverance	♥ 2	Really nice! The graphical tiles look great and the procedurally-generated tracks/worlds that result are a highlight for sure. The rest of the entry is really well-rounded as well, with snappy controls, sfx, and music. My first few runs I died quickly and the time-to-restart felt really long. But once my lifespan got longer, waiting for restart became a lot less of a portion of my gameplay and stopped being a bother. I felt my eyes torn when I scored in the green ball because I had to focus on the map ahead so I don't die, but I also get presented with an overlay with quite a lot of text. I did not dare to read any of it, and merely leaned forward and tried to squint past it to survive. My first few runs I lost for obvious reasons. Then I got good enough that I lasted a long time. Then I got really deep into a run I was feeling good about and I exploded suddenly. Probably it had something to do with the text on the upper-left, which of course I also never read because I had my eyes on the road. I guess the game has other ways to die, like a timer? (Confirmed by looking at screenshots, there is some kind of timer. I was not aware of it and don't know if or how I recovered time) Felt pretty sweet to swing around, nail my jump and land exactly on the lane to scoop up some souls, and then trace a diagonal back to deposit them. A good mix of success and failure in a smooth movement system, all against a backdrop that looked and sounded good. I didn't connect with the text, but that didn't stop me from getting enjoyment. Nice and well-rounded entry!
May 11 01:48:32	16m 58s	Rhythmic Courier	♥ 0	Bumpin little tune, and it was satisfying to get up to near the top speed! I was pretty terrible at the package section though, wow! I had an issue at the start, with no sound. I restarted several times, and then randomly I hit ESC and the music started. Is that right, you have to hit ESC on the title screen to being the music? That threw me. But once I got over that it was very smooth sailing. Nice entry, and really well-rounded with nice pixel art, and music. Great job!
May 11 01:57:20	8m 48s	Delivery Guy	♥ 1	Lol I was not expecting that! Loved it. Game came with a laugh and a surprise, brought me through a few puzzles and some fun exploration of a physics system, gave me a nice last level, and then ended before over-staying its welcome. Nice job! I enjoyed my unique style of delivery.
May 13 00:11:13	46h 13m	Squaregot Survivor	♥ 2	This is such a great idea for the the theme. I love these work games where you are juggling systems and using the limited resource of time to optimize throughput and crank, and I think you have designed a really great core for that. The implementation was also solid, handling many complexities and different states with effective use of UI menus and character controls. The sound effects and info displays were also well chosen. I especially appreciated the celebration siren when I delivered and order, it was a great touch and really leveled up the satisfaction of the moment. For my own personal taste, this game is too slow to capture all of the potential of the core idea. After learning the ropes on my first couple of deliveries, I hit a trip where I got three 1-packages, I ran an efficient route and I delivered them just right. But I did not get that feeling like "awww YEAH I am a delivery GOD!" Game is simply too slow to deliver that over-the-top feeling of accomplishment. I guess I experience it as a dissonance: Game makes my brain feel hurried up, but movement is very slow and basic actions require navigation of multiple menus. I do think it's just taste: some people will appreciate that! But for me I want to play this exact game except the movement is 10x faster, and there are no menus. That's not to say "bad entry" because this is a really good entry. I just thought the idea had SO much potential if the pace was cranked way up. I did still enjoy my time with it, and I hope I didn't over-emphasize negative stuff here. Well done!
May 13 01:00:41	49m 28s	Daily Vrai	♥ 4	Such a very well-rounded entry, with pleasing graphics that are cute but can still show nasty, excellent use of ambient sound, a really smooth and nice-feeling simulated office software, and of course a compelling narrative that stitches it all together. The only addition I could wish for was some way of seeing what use my exfiltrated pictures went to. I enjoyed this one so much that even when I was sentenced to 20 years in prison for not quite catching the instructions, I started over from the beginning and played the whole game to completion. Great job on a unique and compelling entry!
May 13 01:34:35	33m 54s	Mouth Feel	♥ 3	Wild ride! Watching all of my mistakes come back to me later was epic. Very cool idea for the theme, great humorous execution, and really nice art and style. I also had some fun experimenting around with the different sounds. I bet, but am not quite sure, that I could do better a second time, a cool feeling. Great job!
May 13 02:11:39	37m 04s	Icy Porch	♥ 1	So well done! This game was a good core idea, well extended by some fun follow-ups, and topped off with phenomenal execution. Controls were tight and on-point. Concepts were introduced rapidly but extremely effectively with no burdensome textual tutorialization. Graphics were really nice, but taken up a notch by that amazing double-transition of decomposing into pixels that swoop away into a swarm and then pop back as the new level in tweened squares, such a nice touch. And the music was really nice too. An all-around very strong entry that hits everything. Great job. I remember also being impressed by an old game of yours, alien crab in the rotormaze. You make great stuff, wish we had more entries from you!
May 13 02:49:13	37m 34s	Package Panic	♥ 1	342, I can't imagine how you're more than doubling that! Really had fun with this one, nice job! I skipped the tutorial and then lost my first game pretty quick because I didn't immediately understand two things: I didn't realize you could rotate blocks, and I thought the truck would just auto-ship when the clock ran down. I watched the tutorial after that, and it cleared everything up, but the game is very close to totally self-discoverable without a tutorial, just not quite. The vibe is really good. It scratches a little of the tetris itch but with a huge twist since I don't have to live with my mistakes, and it's more of a balance between placing very quickly and also maintaining open options. The choice of three packages to place is also a very nice aspect that lets me hold things in reserve while I see how other situations develop. Music was a nice, art is nice, and the core gameplay loop is really addictive with a nice pacing an a mix of mechanical urgency vs mental analysis. I found myself falling into a real flow state with this one. Very nicely done.
May 16 01:36:10	70h 46m	Build-A-Delivery	♥ 0	Wow this was really cool! I enjoyed the feeling of driving, especially once I got a few upgrades, and I played all the way to my end and still did another delivery and some driving afterward. I really liked this and it's a very strong entry that I think is fun and well-implemented. But it did also have some issues for me: - I struggled badly with the text. Much of it is small, and white-on-white or otherwise very low contrast against the background. As one example, I could not read my money on the package/build screen. Some text had high contrast and was not a problem, but for most of the text I gave up on it, such as the delivery list on the right, and the money. - I struggled with the mini-map. The letters were hard to read, and the icon is a triangle layered below the letters that often made it difficult to tell at a glance which way I was facing. I often went the wrong way. - I had trouble coming to a stop where it would let me press tab. I wished for a brake. Later I learned to just slam into the houses to stop. - The menu often felt like an unnecessary interruption of the fun. If I have Franks package, why do I need a menu? I wish I could drift slide to his door, package delivered ca-ching in 0.4seconds and vroom I'm off to the fun again. I think this game is SO CLOSE to creating awesome moments of high-skill that feel really great and stylish/expressive. But it has too many little interruptions of flow and never reaches the incredible high of it's potential. That said, I really enjoyed the highs that it absolutely DID reach! I appreciated that you did NOT use WASD for the controls. The mouse, being a continuous input like a car really is, lets me be so much more expressive. And drifting into deliveries or just past trees and stuff, it felt really nice. Strong graphics, sound effects, and music all contributed to the fun of tooling around in the car, and the upgrades gave a sense of progression that unlocked even better gamefeel, which motivated me. Nice entry!
May 16 01:59:57	23m 47s	Deep Delivery	♥ 1	Fun game! I played all the way through to the end, and found the difficulty and length to be just right. The checkpoints were REALLY important, they let me avoid repeating large stretches of the game, but the way you can't re-use your last one also created a few tense moments of being very careful not to die! I also enjoyed some of the puzzles that you first encounter in a way you can't pass them. "Lock before Key" is a common idea, but I especially liked the approach used here where it was ambiguous whether it was a lock or a dexterity test. For example I am thinking of the section after the fist major gun-gate where you go up and then there's a long vertical tunnel with falling rocks that MAYYYYBE you could dodge your way through, especially with the i-frames of your first hit, so.... I tried a few times, backed off and figured I'd find another way around. Sure enough, I did, and then after I got through that part, I found myself looping back around through that same vert corridor except now I was going downward so I could get through safely (one way trip tho). Total Metroid echoes with that kind of smart level design that sets me up for an experience, very well done. Controls initially felt stiff and 3 seconds into the game I though, "wow this movement is not selling me on being underwater at all." But very quickly I realized the game HAS TO be like that, and I got into the world of what it was and didn't mind the stiff yet precisely controllable movement. Art was charming and clear, an the music was a nice presence. Well done.
May 17 03:22:31	25h 22m	Ooober Cookies	♥ 1	Was a little lost at the beginning but then I figured it out after a few tries! Nice simple graphics were effective despite not being fancy. I enjoyed the day/night cycle that gave a little life to the world, and the little person running to the building, and the little car lights. Good small touches that spruced up an otherwise simple look. Would have loved seeing some nice soundscape rounding out the atmosphere. I got a 2-car empire up and running. Can't cut it too close and you need a cushion for gas money (or salary?) before you expand, else it's game over. I ran with two cars for a while until it was steadily profitable, and then I called it quits. Charming entry.
May 17 03:34:48	12m 17s	Generated Adventure	♥ 2	Very cool exercise, thanks for showing us what can be done with the AI! I would say the strong point was the art assets. The music sounded nice at first but wore out its welcome, in my opinion. The dialog had some holes, but pretty that's something I'd expect from AI. (eg I'm sent to the librarian because he will ask me to fetch something, but I open the conversation with him by asking him where I can find some random book I lost? AI felt like it lost track of the thread of the story) Movement felt a bit stiff, too, but never caused any problems except maybe breaking the immersion of moving around in the nice-looking space. Overall I appreciated the entry, especially because you went all-in on the AI as a constraint, so a great experiment for an LD, well done.